My Scars Are Casting Shadows (SpaMano)
by SecretlyIrish
Summary: 17 year old Antonio Fernandéz Carriedo has the brightest eyes, the sweetest smile, and scars so deep they cast shadows. 16 year old Lovino meets him when he switches into Guitar I. He sees the Warning Signs and makes it his personal mission to make sure Antonio never goes as far as he did. There's just one small problem... Antonio is scared of Lovino.
1. Nervous

If you were to ask anyone in Hillcrest High School* who Antonio Carriedo was they would all tell you the same thing; he's the one who smiles all the time, with a guitar strapped to his back and a kind word on his lips. He's the sweetest, they'll tell you, he couldn't hurt a fly. Such a sweet boy, such a good kid. All As and Bs (except English), involved in the music programme.

And they aren't wrong, but that is only the shiny, polished surface that he let's them see. If they saw the him that was once the caffeine high wore down they would be shocked at the fear in those wide green eyes, the uncertainty. And the scratching! They would pinch themselves, trying to wake up from a nightmare that they weren't having. When was home and his nails raked up and down his arms until they were red or on one little spot until it bled. He did this so often that his too thin body was covered in patchlike scars, as if he was trying to patch himself together.

The most shocking detail, however, would be the thick, crisp white lines that were everywhere. Each line was raised into a tangible bump, and each one cast its own long shadow, its own little tale.

But nobody at school knew that. They only knew how "happy" he must have been. Even his dad was under the spell of his ceaseless smile, likely because he was almost never home long enough to see the falling tears or little spots of blood on the pure white carpet.

So here he was, sitting in his first actual guitar class, beaming at the teacher, Ms. Autumns, everyone in a large circle. He and maybe three other people actually had their guitars on hand while everyone else was smart and left theirs home. Ms. Autumns seemed nice enough, a short, fat, sarcastic sort of person who meant well, and the other kids didn't look too hostile. He was okay, for now.

Roll started, and went on normally until- when he thought for sure they were almost done- a certain student burst in. Antonio had seen him around before a couple times, and this kid scared him shitless. He was angry, he was rude, he swore, hissed, bit and ridiculed. His name was Lovino Vargas, and he made Antonio immensely nervous.

*Hillcrest High School (HHS) is an actual school, however most of the faculty and students in this story are NOT real people.


	2. Scared

Antonio's luck had never been something to brag about, considering that his life had started out kinda depressing and only went to shit and shitter from there, so he simply wasn't surprised when Lovino sat right next to him. He chewed on the inside part of his cheek to keep from screaming or otherwise making a giant fool out of himself and prayed to God that Lovino would just ignore him. Of course, Lady Luck decided it would be more amusing to torture the poor lad.

"Oi, what's your name?" Lovino was asking in a voice that was sort of like a low rumble, yet somehow entirely sarcastic. It was, in Antonio's mind, as if Lovino knew he made him nervous, and just wanted to see him squirm.

He responded anyway. "Antonio, y tú eres Lovino, no*?" was what popped out of his mouth. He'd meant to speak English, but he was scared, so he went back to his mother tongue.

Lovino gave him a blank stare and Antonio's face grew hot and he began to subtly scratch at his left wrist, just a tiny movement on the inner side area. Lovino's lips pursed and suddenly he was gripping Antonio's scratching hand fiercely.

"Stop," he growled, eyes flashing a hundred different things at once, each one more terrifying to Lovino than the last.

He spent a very long time thanking God that the rest of the class was just rhythm excersizes, and even longer still when Lovino was picked up by some stupidly fancy car along with his brother. The first thing he did when he got home would mutilate his skin, but certainly feel more soothing than simple scratching.

*Antonio, and you're Lovino, no? (I sincerely apologize for any mistakes in my Spanish and encourage corrections.)


	3. Terrified

#The next day at Frozen Hellhole (school), Antonio found himself in even deeper shit. Lovino, angrier and pissier in the mornings, had transferred into his 5th- basically B1- period class, which was already hell because it was mathematics as well as the coldest room in the entire building. And if Antonio's morning wasn't shitty enough already, Lovino's new seat was right next to his. He really wanted to cry, but managed to keep a thin smile on his face.

Fortunately the lesson was easy enough, even with Lovino staring at him throughout the entire lecture. Normally he would have looked over and asked what in Heaven's name he wanted, but this was Lovino. He'd probably get his head chopped off and eaten for breakfast or something. Especially since it looked like the poor boy hadn't had any coffee that morning.

Coffee...

That's right, Antonio had picked up some canned coffee on his way to school, and he had an extra. He may as well give it to Lovino, it may spare his life. He slowly reached into the bag and pulled it out, then shakily set it on Lovino's desk. Lovino blinked, then he smiled for the briefest of moments. It was a cute smile, Antonio decided, a shy one. It didn't fit with the screaming, hissing, biting boy he'd come to know as Lovino Vargas.

He was terrified, but he decided maybe, just maybe, it was worthwhile to see if there was something more to Lovino, and at the same time he was deciding this, Lovino was deciding to befriend the obviously not okay Antonio. Maybe he could keep Antonio out of the darkest part of the demons he held, keep him from falling down the same abyss, keep him from ever, ever attempting what he had in the past.


	4. Borderline Traumatized

It had been a week since Antonio had decided that maybe, just _maybe_ , Lovino wasn't as scary as he'd thought at first, and it had gone fairly uneventfully until now. Lovino was screaming in the face of Gilbert's brother, Ludwig. Antonio couldn't hear what was being said, but Lovino's face was so angry that it scared him to his core. Antonio decided it was best to go back to avoiding Lovino, despite the small warmth that had begun to grow in his chest.

Lovino noticed the change, and it worried him. He managed to corner Antonio right after guitar class, a soft worried look on his face. Which, of course, worried Antonio beyond words. "What do you want?" Antonio asked, trying to sound tough, but failing horribly. Lovino reached out to touch him, wanting to soothe him, but Antonio flinched away.

"Why are you afraid of me?" Lovino asked, his voice soft and smooth, steady even. Of course Antonio's eyes only widened and he backed away slowly.

"Why are you always yelling at people?" came the reply, hesitant and quiet. It was Lovino's turn to look shocked, but then the shock melted into shame. Lovino truly hated the part of himself that needed to lash out so violently and so constantly, against anything and everything that reminded him of the past he preferred to deny even existed.

"I can't help it. I'm sorry, I won't yell at you," Lovino whispered, reaching out again, only to be slapped away.

"I don't trust you, I don't like you, don't talk to me," Antonio demanded in a truly terrified voice. And then he ran away.


	5. Definitely Not Ok

Lovino knew only two things for certain; one, Antonio needed help and, two, Antonio was too afraid of Lovino to possibily let him help. Lovino punched his pillow then let out an angered scream. He wasn't worried about anyone hearing it and getting mad, nobody was home- nobody had been home in years.

He screamed and screamed out his scarlet frustration until he was left with nothing but a hoarse throat and numb emotions. Damn that Antonio for being too like he used to be! Damn him for being broken and scared and so close to falling to the Edge.

Lovino had been to the Edge and back again; it was pitch black, broken only by spires of grey emptiness. The soft lemon-coloured light of joy couldn't come anywhere near There, and anger could only occasionally break through the shattered remains of one's heart. The Edge was where all hopes and dreams were swallowed up by eternal self hatred and the repeating echoes of every word of hatred ever said.

Lovino could feel the panic welling up in his chest, and took a series of deep breaths, trying desperstely to remind him these feelings weren't permanent, that he was in control, that he didn't have to scratch to feel strong again. It took a while, but it faded away like all things bad eventually did. His therapist would be glad to know he'd made it though this one alone.

And now that his mind had cleared, he had a plan.


	6. Phase I: Unavoidable

Antonio couldn't avoid him if they were on a school assigned project, could he? So all he had to do is convince Ms. Autumns to assign them to learn a piece together poutside of class; it was a simple enough task on the surface, but doing so required an insane amount of begging, pleading, and explaining. Fortunately, Ms. Autumns was kind and the explaining took a mere two hours.

The entire class was now to come up with an original composition that _happened_ to be a duet and Antonio and Lovino _happened_ to be a pair, just as Lovino had intended. Antonio looked terrified, but that couldn't be helped.

And so that's the quick and simple of how they both ended up at Lovino's eternally empty house, discussing ideas on what their duet should be about.

"Joy and tomatoes!"

"No, dumbass. I don't _do_ happy."

"Uh. . . just tomatoes then?"

"How about something with, you know, meaning?"

Antonio's face changed, the caffeine was wearing off and it was getting harder and harder to wear his painted smile.

"Antonio, I know what you're feeling," Lovino set his guitasr down and forced Antonio to look at him, "You're sad and scared. I've been there, I can see it in your eyes, in your scars, and the nervous way you keep your eyes to the ground like a puppy kicked one time too many."

Antonio's eyes went wide.


	7. Phase II: the Flower Blooms?

The song that they wrote ended up being written in a mixture of rough, emotional Spanish and poetic Italian, not a word was in English. It was played solely on the low E, A and D strings, and had a slow, lulling beat, yet remained as consistent as rain gradually sliding down the window pane. It had a lot of work that needed to be done on it still, the rhythm was funny in a couple of places and the words were wrong in others, but it was time for them to rest a little.

"Is pizza for dinner okay?" Lovino asked, not particularly feeling like getting off his ass and actually cooking a fancy meal. Something casual would probably put Antonio more at ease anyway. The boy in question simply nodded and played with the ends of his shirt. Lovino resisted the ever growing urge to sigh and pull him into his arms and not let him go _ever._

But of course that wouldn't help his case at all. So he just zombied into the kitchen to reheat last night's pizza and make a pot of coffee with Antonio shyly following behind. Lovino probably wouldn't have believed that the quiet person behind him was that ever smiling bastard if he hadn't seen the signs of Brokenness. "You know, it'd be nice if we talked. Nobody but me lives here, and I'm really sick of silence," Lovino said as casually as he possibly could.

To his despair, Antonio only nodded.

Lovino really did sigh this time, and just went about making food like he was supposed to- and fuck it was eight o'clock. "Hey, uh... it's around eight. If you need you can crash in one of the other rooms after dinner." He turned to look at Antonio just in time to see another meek nod.

What had happened to make him so broken anyway? This was just plain bizarre. He needed to come up with something, dear God anything, to break through that damned shell of his. Lovino did a quick scan of the kitchen before slowly smirking and grabbing the flour. "Arm yourself, this is war," and with that Lovino threw a small amount of flour onto Antonio who blinked confusedly, then- by some Godsend- actually grinned and grabbed the sugar.

"I think maybe you need to sweeten up," Antonio said- his voice still no more than a mumble- and then viciously sprinkled sugar over Lovino.


	8. Indeed the flower has bloomed

An hour later Lovino was out of flour and sugar, but Antonio was _laughing_. It was a strange laugh to be sure, but it was warm and sweet like honey. Lovino wanted to listen to it forever, already addicted to the musical sound. Antonio's head came to rest on Lovino's chest, too weak from the laughter to hold it up himself, and Lovino's arms instinctively came to wrap around him with the gentleness of a lamb.

They stayed like that for what must have been an eternity and a half, long after Antonio's laughter ceased. At this point Lovino had forgotten why they were in the kitchen to start with, not that he really cared anymore. He had accomplished his mission- Antonio gazed at him with warm, trusting eyes.

The class was stunned by their performance, not becuase of the lyrics (which they didn't understand), but rather by the smooth, solemn voices that carried deep emotions and the slow melody their fingers played out. Ms. Autumns, however, was shocked by the closeness the two had achieved over the course of their assignment, not having expected Lovino's plan to work as effectively as it did.

And now the two had returned to Lovino's house, which no longer felt so cold and empty. Perhaps it was the lemon yellow laughter and honey flavoured chuckles that filled the once stagnant air, or perhaps it was the gentle taste of vermilion apples that had seeped into the very atmosphere. Whatever it was, it brought a warm light with it. Despite this light, however, shadows cast by healing scars remained, secrets remained, whispers of demons lurking just beyond the reach of the light remained.

But for now the brush of each other's lips was enough to keep the darkness at bay.

Fin


End file.
